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My sentence also provided that I should be compelled to assist in all the crimes resulting from my own leniency, and should be powerless to prevent them by warning the sufferers or the authorities. And," concluded the unhappy spectre, sobbing aloud, "here I am, s'elp me!" The two burglars were really touched, for they had loved Lord Justice Pimblekin as a true and valuable friend.
However, as it is impossible to remove a judge from the bench even if he murders the Queen, the Royal Family, and the Bench of Bishops, steals the watches of the whole Houses of Lords and Commons, and even defrauds the Inland Revenue, Lord Justice Pimblekin was allowed to remain on the bench; and, as he was a socially influential person, bygones were allowed to be bygones.
"Your crime," said Lord Justice Pimblekin, "is the most heartless, atrocious, inhuman, and horrible that it has ever been my misfortune to hear of: your long and cold-blooded premeditation; the cynical indifference to the result of your atrocities, combined with the delight with which you have wallowed in human gore; your contempt for all the dictates of honesty, truth, pity, and good faith; your greed, ingratitude, treachery, savageness, meanness, and cannibalism; all these things stamp you as the most atrocious, unmitigated and loathsome scoundrel, savage, monster, and vampire that ever wallowed in the foul and fathomless quagmire of infinite and immeasurable dastardliness.
Jemmy's eye, glancing casually round the room, perceived a dim figure standing in a dark corner. With a strong expression of disapproval, Jemmy jumped to his feet and sprang towards the intruding eavesdropper; but stopped suddenly with an ejaculation of surprise as he recognised the well-known and revered features of Lord Justice Pimblekin!
"Under these circumstances I will disregard my palpable duty, and render the whole proceedings a farce, by sentencing you to a fine of forty shillings, or a month." The fine being immediately paid, the prisoner left the court amid the congratulations of his friends. New laurels were added to the already superfoliated wreath of Lord Justice Pimblekin by this fresh masterpiece of judicial wisdom.
It was passingly suggested that his lordship's growing evil reputation might prejudice the concern in the eyes of the public; but the promoter, who knew the public well, reassuringly explained that investors were so hopelessly idiotic that a board composed entirely of burglars would not prevent their investing so long as the prospectus contained sufficiently impossible promises of profit; so the ghost of Lord Pimblekin officiated as chairman and assisted in causing several suicides.
If that judge had done his duty, these two would still have been working out their time for the last crime but seven which they had committed; whereas Lord Pimblekin had let them off for that job with three months, and visited their subsequent deeds with penalties which decreased at a constant ratio, until for the latest burglarious entry, removal of property valued at £500, wilful destruction of other property valued at £5,000, and maiming of two policemen and one footman he had given them seven days.
His arm, raised to fell the eavesdropper, sank impotently to his side: he gasped and stared. "You need have no anxiety," said Lord Justice Pimblekin in a strange, hollow, far-off voice, "your secret is safe with me. I will not blow the gaff."
The thing got noised about, how the eminent and respected judge Lord Justice Pimblekin had not been killed in his balloon adventure, but had returned to the country and, disregarding all his old associations of morality, refinement, and respectability, was herding with criminals of the lowest type, and indulging in the most nefarious and vulgar practices.
Now, it happened that there had been for the last year or so before the disappearance of Justice Pimblekin a disagreement of a somewhat painful nature between himself and his twin brother the Bishop of Hampstead. Both were old gentlemen of the utmost purity and philanthropy of principle, to whom the injuring of anyone especially a brother would have been an idea of the utmost horror.
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